Why can't we just do something like this (diff from
initscripts-4.24-1):
267,269c267,271
< # Add raid devices, old style...
< if [ -f /proc/mdstat -a -f /etc/raidtab -a -
x /sbin/raidadd ]; then
< action "Starting up RAID devices" raidadd -a
---
> # Add/Start raid devices
> if [ -f /proc/mdstat -a -f /etc/raidtab ]; then
> rc=0
> if [ -x /sbin/raidadd ]; then
> action "Starting up RAID devices" raidadd -a
271c273
< rc=$?
---
> rc=$?
273,274c275,280
< if [ $rc = 0 ]; then
< raidrun -a
---
> if [ $rc = 0 ]; then
> raidrun -a
> rc=$?
> fi
> elif [ -x /sbin/raidstart ]; then
> action "Starting up RAID devices"
raidstart -a
That should work for everyone. What's really strange about
how the latest initscripts are dealing with raid is that it
doesn't even match with the version of raidtools that is
installed with the system. After bug 3360 I wasn't
expecting this to be a problem anymore so I stopped
checking the rc.sysinit to see if it had a raidstart in it,
freaked when I couldn't boot up :). (btw, there should be
a page showing correct usage of the bug system so that
people like me know whether we should file a new bug or
simply attach things to the end of other ones (since we
can't reopen bugs we don't own...))

FWIW, unified diffs have the advantage of being more human legible,
as well as being much more amenable to being extracted from the
HTML page.
The code in rc.sysinit is for backwards compatibility only; if
you have the old-style raid partitions, it's used, in which
case you need the old raid tools anyways. If you have the new-style
raid, it should be autostarted...

The RAID partitions are only autodetected if you specified:
persistent-superblock 1
:in your raidtab file when you created the raid set. If you did not,
then they must be manually started by reading from the raidtab file.
You also have to make the partition id's for the drives 0xFD
(something I didn't know until today when I went researching to see
if there was something I missed, thanks :) ). BUT, it is of course
possible that people might not have flaged their RAID drives with the
persistant superblock when they created them which would require them
to recreate them in order to have autodetection work.